Tuesday, February 28, 2017

People who don’t give money to the homeless because they think it
will be spent on alcohol and not food should ask themselves what guilty
pleasures they are secretly spending money on, Pope Francis said.“There are many excuses” to justify why one doesn’t lend a hand when
asked by a person begging on the street, he said in an interview
published the day before the beginning of Lent.

But giving something to someone in need “is always right,” and it
should be done with respect and compassion because “tossing money and
not looking in (their) eyes is not a Christian” way of behaving, he
said.

The interview, published Feb. 28, was conducted by the monthly
magazine, “Scarp de’ Tenis” (Tennis Shoes), which serves homeless and
marginalized people in Milan and is run by the local and national
Caritas branches.

The pope was scheduled to visit Milan March 25.

Of the several questions the pope was asked, one focused on whether
he thought giving money to people begging on the street was the right
thing to do.

One thing people may tell themselves to feel better about not giving
anything, the pope said, is “I give money and then he spends it on
drinking a glass of wine.”

But, the pope said, if “a glass of wine is the only happiness he has
in life, that’s OK. Instead ask yourself what do you do on the sly? What
‘happiness’ do you seek in secret?”

Or, another way to look at it, the pope said, is recognize how “you
are luckier, with a house, a wife, children” and then ask why should the
responsibility to help be pushed onto someone else.

The way one reaches out to the person asking for help is important,
he said, and must be done “by looking them in the eyes and touching
their hands.”

When encountering people who live on the street, the pope said he
always greets them and sometimes inquires about their lives and
background.

He always chatted with a homeless family and couple that lived next
to the archbishop’s residence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said, and
never considered getting rid of them.

When “Someone told me, ‘They’re making the chancery filthy,’ Well, the filth is within” one’s heart, he said.

It’s important to be sincere because “people who live on the streets
understand right away when the other person is really interested” in
them as a person or when they just feel pity, he said.

“One can look at a homeless person and see him as a person or else as
if he were a dog, and they notice this different way of looking” at
them, he said.

When the interviewer asked why the pope thought the poor were capable
of changing the world, he said that in his experience in Buenos Aires,
he saw more solidarity in the slums than in less poor neighborhoods,
where “I encountered more selfishness.”

While there are many more problems in the shantytowns, “often the
poor are more supportive of each other because they feel they need each
other.”

Also, he said, problems are more starkly evident in the poor
neighborhoods, for example with substance abuse, “you see more drugs,
but only because it’s more ‘covered up’ in other neighborhoods” where
users are “white-collar” abusers.

Albert von Boeselager, whose dismissal from his post as chancellor of
the Knights of Malta sparked a crisis within the fraternal order, has
confirmed that it was the group’s former grand master, Fra’ Matthew
Festing—and not Cardinal Raymond Burke—who demanded his resignation.

Von Boeselager was restored to his post when Pope Francis intervened
in the Order’s affairs; Festing resigned at the Pope’s request.

The
chancellor said that the demand for his resignation came after a
controversy that had begun in 2015, over the distribution of condoms in a
program sponsored by the Knights of Malta’s charitable arm.

He said
that Cardinal Burke approved the move for his resignation, but Festing
made the demand.

Last week the acting head of the Order, Fra’ Ludwig Hoffman von
Rumerstein, said that Cardinal Burke was the one who asked for von
Boeselager’s resignation.

Cardinal Burke replied that he was “stunned”
by that claim.

“I consider it a calumny,” he said.

Von Boeselager said that reforms were needed in the Order of Malta.

He said that the process leading up to his dismissal was arbitrary, and
the move was carried out in violation of the Order’s own rules.

The carbon dioxide fast, that is, the reduction of the use of fuel,
electricity and waste of plastic, paper and water, is the proposal of
the Archdiocese of Mumbai (Maharashtra) for the period of Lent, which
starts tomorrow.In a statement posted on the Archdiocese website, the local Church
says that "fasting challenges people to consider how their everyday
actions can have an impact on the environment."

So from tomorrow, Ash
Wednesday, until April 8, Catholics are invited to "reduce actions that
hurt God's creation."

Msgr. Allwyn D'Silva, Auxiliary Bishop and the Office of the
Secretary for Climate Change of the Federation of Asian Bishops'
Conferences (FABC), reports that "for two years, the diocese has been
organizing the carbon fast. Also this year we are continuing the
initiative that has is becoming very popular, and continues to be
practiced after Lent”.

To make sure that the planet reaches sustainability, the bishops
stresses that "everyone can take small steps to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions. And then the gestures that we practice during Lent can
continue even after, in order to ensure lasting change. "

According to Msgr. D'Silva, "the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) states clearly that human activities are the main cause of
climate change. So we as a Church, and in response to call of Pope
Francis [with the encyclical "Laudato sì '", ed], must defend and protect creation. There is no better time than Lent to implement the carbon fast".

The bishop believes that Pope Francis, in supporting care for the
environment, has "created a new beatitude: Blessed are those who protect
and take care of our common home."

The theme of climate change, he
points out, "is rooted in faith, because taking care of creation means
to express their love for the Creator. The more interested we are in the
care of creation, the more spiritual we become ".

A rethinking of behavior "must take place not only in India but
across the world, given the uncertain weather, floods and rising
temperatures, which have already caused a lot of damage."

From our side,
concluded Msgr. D'Silva, "we can start reducing the consumption of
fuel, walking, cutting out the use of electrical energy, using less
paper, reducing food, water and other waste ".

In more ways than one, Ash Wednesday — celebrated March 1 this year — leaves a mark.That’s because not only are Catholics marked with a sign of penitence
with ashes on their foreheads, but the rich symbolism of the rite
itself draws Catholics to churches in droves even though it is not a
holy day of obligation and ashes do not have to be distributed during a
Mass.

Almost half of adult Catholics, 45 percent, typically receive ashes —
made from the burned and blessed palms of the previous year’s Palm
Sunday — at Ash Wednesday services, according to the Center for Applied
Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Parish priests say they get more people at church that day than
almost any other — excluding Christmas and Easter — and the
congregations are usually much bigger than for Holy Thursday or Good
Friday services.

“Virtually every parish that I’ve worked with will have more people
come to Ash Wednesday than almost any other celebration,” said Thomas
Humphries, assistant professor of philosophy, theology and religion at
St. Leo University in St. Leo, Florida.

“We talk about Christmas and Easter as certainly being the most
sacred and most attended events during the year, but Ash Wednesday is
not even a day of obligation. In terms of liturgical significance, it’s
very minor, but people observe it as overwhelmingly important,” he said
in a Feb. 17 email to Catholic News Service.

Humphries said part of the Ash Wednesday draw is the “genuine human
recognition of the need to repent and the need to be reminded of our own
mortality. Having someone put ashes on your head and remind you ‘we are
dust and to dust we shall return’ is an act of humility.”

He also said the day — which is the start of Lent in the Latin Church
— reminds people that they are not always who they should be and it is a
chance to “stand together with people and be reminded of our frailty
and brokenness and of our longing to do better.”

“This practice is particularly attractive to us today because it is
an embodied way to live out faith, to witness to Christian identity in
the world, ” said Timothy O’Malley, director of the Notre Dame Center
for Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, where he also is a
professor of New Testament and early Christianity.

He said that’s the only way to explain why millions of people identify themselves “as mortal sinners for an entire day.”

Jesuit Father Bruce Morrill, the Edward A. Malloy professor of
Catholic studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville,
Tennessee, thinks the appeal of Ash Wednesday is partly because
participants receive a “marker of identity” as Catholics.

The day also has rich symbolism, he said, of both flawed humanity and
mortality. He pointed out that even though a large percentage of
Catholics do not go to confession they will attend this very penitential
service because they “get a sense of repentance and a kind of
solidarity in it.”

“Clearly it touches on a deep sense of Catholic tradition in a way few other symbols do,” he told CNS Feb. 17.

For many, it also links them to childhood tradition of getting ashes.
It also links them, even if they are unaware of its origins, to an
ancient church tradition.

The priest said the use of ashes goes back to Old Testament times
when sackcloth and ashes were worn as signs of penance.

The church
incorporated this practice in the eighth century when those who
committed grave sins known to the public had to do public penitence,
sprinkled with ashes.

But by the Middle Ages, the practice of penance
and marking of ashes became something for the whole church.

Ash Wednesday also is one of two days, along with Good Friday, that
are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholic adults —
meaning no eating meat and eating only one full meal and two smaller
meals.

The other key aspect of the day is that it is the start of the 40 days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving of Lent.

“Ash Wednesday can be a little bit like New Year’s Day,” Father Mike
Schmitz, chaplain for Newman Catholic Campus Ministries at the
University of Minnesota Duluth, told CNS in an email. He said the day
gives Catholics “a place to clearly begin something new that we know we
need to do.”

As we head into the Lenten season, Pope Francis
has invited us to reflect on our relationship to God and to money, as
we can't serve both masters at the same time.

His words came on Tuesday
during morning Mass in the Casa Santa Marta.

Speaking about the message of the Gospel readings in these days
leading up to the beginning of Lent, Pope Francis recalled the story of
the rich young man who wanted to follow the Lord, but whose wealth led
him to follow money instead.

Jesus’ words in this story worry the disciples, as he tells them it
is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In today’s reading from St
Mark’s Gospel, the Pope said, we see Peter asking the Lord what will
happen to them, as they have given up everything to follow him. “It’s almost as if Peter is passing Jesus the bill,” Pope Francis exclaimed.

Peter didn’t know what to say: the young man has gone his way, but
what about us? Pope Francis said Jesus’ reply is clear: I tell you there
is no-one who has given up everything and has not received everything.
You will receive everything, in that overflowing measure with which God
gives his gifts.

The Pope repeats the Gospel words: “there is no one who has given up
house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands
for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, who will not receive a
hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and
sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and
eternal life in the age to come”.

The Lord is incapable of giving less than everything, the Pope said: when he gives us something, he gives all of himself.

Yet there is a word in this reading, he continued, which gives us
cause for reflection: in this present age we receive a hundred times
more houses and brothers, together with persecutions. The Pope said this
means entering into a different way of thinking, a different way of
behaving. Jesus gives everything of himself, because the fullness of God
is a fullness emptied out on the Cross.

This is the gift of God, the Pope insisted, a fullness which is
emptied out. This is also the Christian’s way of being, to seek and
receive a fullness which is emptied out and to follow that path is not
easy, he stressed. How do we recognize that we are following this path
of giving everything in order to receive everything, he asked? The words
of the first reading of the day tell us to “pay homage to the Lord, and
do not spare your freewill gifts. With each contribution show a
cheerful countenance, and pay your tithes in a spirit of joy. Give to
the Most High as he has given to you, generously, according to your
means".

A cheerful face and eyes full of joy, the Pope said, these are the
signs that we’re following this path of all and nothing, of fullness
emptied out. The rich young man’s face fell and he became very sad,
because he was not capable of receiving and welcoming this fullness
emptied out, but the saints and Peter were able to receive it. Amid all
their trials and difficulties, they had cheerful faces and hearts full
of joy.

Pope Francis concluded by recalling the Chilean saint Alberto Hurtado
who worked with the poor amidst such difficulty, persecution and
suffering, yet his words were ’I’m happy, Lord, I’m happy’. May he teach
us to follow this difficult path of all and nothing, of Christ’s
fullness emptied out, and to be able to say at all times ’I’m happy,
Lord, I’m happy’

“The Virgin Mary has not appeared in Medjugorje,” said Bishop Ratko
Peric of Mostar-Duvno, the diocese in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which includes
Medjugorje.Two weeks after the Vatican announced Pope Francis was sending a
Polish archbishop to study the pastoral needs of the townspeople and the
thousands of pilgrims who flock to Medjugorje each year, Bishop Peric
posted his statement Feb. 26 on his diocesan website.

Three of the six young people who originally claimed to have seen
Mary in Medjugorje in June 1981 say she continues to appear to them each
day; the other three say Mary appears to them once a year now.

Bishop Peric noted that a diocesan commission studied the alleged
apparitions in 1982-1984 and again in 1984-1986 with more members; and
the then-Yugoslavian bishops’ conference studied them from 1987 to 1990.
All three commissions concluded that it could not be affirmed that a
supernatural event was occurring in the town.

The six young people continued to claim to see Mary and receive
messages from her and tens of thousands of pilgrims visited the town —
and the alleged visionaries — each year. Pope Benedict XVI established a
commission that worked from 2010 to 2014; and the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith began looking at that commission’s report in 2014.

Many observers believe Pope Francis appointed his envoy in February
to study the pastoral needs of the town and the pilgrims in preparation
for releasing a judgment on the alleged apparitions.

The position of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno “for this entire period
has been clear and resolute: these are not real apparitions of the
Blessed Virgin Mary,” Bishop Peric wrote in his statement, which was
posted in Croatian and Italian.

Some people, he said, believe the apparitions were real at least at
the beginning — perhaps for the first week — but that the young people
continued to claim to see and hear Mary “for other reasons, most of
which are not religious.”

Bishop Peric said a study of the transcripts of interviews with the
six alleged visionaries from that first week give several motives for
suspicion if not total doubt about the supernatural nature of events.

First, he said, the Mary of Medjugorje usually speaks only when
spoken to, “she laughs in a strange way, in response to certain
questions she disappears and then returns, and she obeyed the ‘seers’
and the pastor who made her come down from the hill into the church even
against her will. She does not know with certainty how long she will
appear, she allows some of those present to step on her veil lying on
the ground, to touch her clothes and her body. This is not the Gospel
Mary.”

The seventh time Mary allegedly appeared, June 30, 1981, five of the
youngsters were in a nearby town called Cerno and claimed to have seen
Mary there. Bishop Peric said that in the recorded interviews all five
reported that the apparitions would continue only three more days, July
1-3, 1981.

“Then she changed her mind and still ‘appears,'” the bishop wrote.

“Taking into account all that was examined and studied by this
diocesan curia, including the study of the first seven days of the
presumed apparitions, one calmly can affirm: The Virgin Mary has not
appeared in Medjugorje. This is the truth that we uphold, and we believe
in the word of Jesus who said the truth will set you free.”

Not only is there a good deal in common between Muslims and
Christians, but Catholics are called to respect and work together with
those who practice the Muslim faith in recognition of truth and goodness
they do possess, said Islam scholar Fr. Thomas Michel.Fr. Michel, who holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Theology and worked under
Pope John Paul II as head of the Vatican Office for Relations with
Muslims, told CNA that Benedict XVI, like both St. John Paul II and Pope
Francis, have all repeated the same message regarding Muslims – that of
the Second Vatican Council.

“The document Nostrae aetate says that the Church has ‘esteem’ for
Muslims,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we should just tolerate Muslims
or put up with Muslims. ‘Esteem’ means to try to see what people have
that’s good and appreciate them for that.”

The major “common point” between Christianity and Islam, Fr. Michel
said, is that both faiths believe in the existence of only one God, and
that both are trying to do what this one God wants.

Therefore, “how can we be enemies with people who are also, like us,
trying to worship the one God?” he said. “Since the time of the Second
Vatican Council, we've seen that part of our work as Christians is to be
in dialogue with people of other faiths.”

“And this means not only talking to them and listening to them, but
it also means cooperating with them, working together with them for
good.”

This dialogue, Fr. Michel emphasized, isn’t just about making peace
with each other, although that is important, but is about “the kind of
world we live in” and how that makes it important that we all come to
know each other better.

Fr. Michel noted that when the Fathers of the Council taught us, they
didn’t deny the past conflict and tension between Catholics and
Muslims, but they did say that it is in the past, and “what we have to
do now is work together for the common good.”

The document Nostrae aetate is the declaration on the relation of the
Church to non-Christian religions from the Second Vatican Council,
promulgated by Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965.

Fr. Michel referenced a part of the document that says that the
Church “rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She
regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those
precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the
ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that
Truth which enlightens all men.”

“The Church, therefore,” it continues, “exhorts her sons, that
through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other
religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the
Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good
things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found
among these men.”

Four ways we can collaborate with Muslims or those of other faiths,
Fr. Michel said, is by together working to build peace, and to promote
social justice, “true human values,” and “true human freedom.”

A Jesuit, Fr. Thomas Michel has lived and worked among Muslims
himself for many years, particularly in Turkey. He first went to
Indonesia, joining the order’s Indonesia Province, in 1969.

Fr. Michel worked in the Vatican under Pope John Paul II from
1981-1994 as head of the Office for Relations with Muslims. From
2013-2016 he taught religious studies at the School of Foreign Service
of Georgetown University in Doha, Qatar.

For 2016-2017, Fr. Michel joined the teaching staff at the Pontifical
Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, where he gave a
lecture Feb. 23.

His lecture on Contemporary Islam, titled “A Christian Encounter with
Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur,” gave a Christian analysis of the Risale-i
Nur Collection, an interpretation on the Qur’an written by Bediuzzaman
Said Nursi between the 1910s and 1950s in Turkey.

Summing up the teachings in what is a 6,000 page collection, Fr.
Michel told CNA that Nursi “was trying to help Muslims live their faith
in a lively way in modern terms.”

“He said you don't have to live in the past, you don't have to have
nostalgia for earlier times.” The idea Nursi tried to convey, Fr. Michel
explained, is that modernity is not the enemy of faith, “but a patient
in need of the spiritual medicine faith provides.”

Nursi said, according to Fr. Michel, that “our enemies aren’t this
group of people or that group of people.” Instead, he said our enemies
are ignorance, poverty and disunity. And these are not only the enemies
of Muslims, but of everyone.

Fr. Michel said that Nursi taught that to fight these common enemies everyone must work together, using both faith and reason.

According to Fr. Michel, there are somewhere around 5-12 million
people who try to live the Qur’an according to the teachings of Nursi,
depending on how you measure the level of commitment.

The majority of these Muslims are in Turkey, but some can be found in
central Asia, places in Europe and even in the U.S. It isn’t a formal
movement per se, but some people devote their lives to studying Nursi’s
teachings and others try to study it in the midst of living their normal
lives, he said.

If worried about Islamic extremists or that the Muslim religion will
overwhelm Christian values in Western society, Fr. Michel said to try to
remember that in the case of refugees, they “want the same things that
normal Americans want.”

They want “to raise their children to be good God-fearing people, and
to have a life, to have a job, to enjoy simple enjoyments. They're no
different than we are,” he said.

He said that in his experience, those who have negative attitudes
about Muslims have only experienced the religion through TV or the
newspaper, but that those “who know Muslims…have a very different
attitude.”

“I've lived among thousands of Muslims…The people that I've lived
with in many different countries, they go from birth to death, and from
children to grandchildren, and there's no violence in their lives,” he
said.

The U.S. bishops are responding with solidarity and concern for the
Jewish community, following a surge in anti-Semitic actions in recent
weeks.“On behalf of the Bishops and people of the Catholic Church, as the
Chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Inter-religious
Affairs, I want to express our deep sympathy, solidarity, and support to
our Jewish brothers and sisters,” said Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanksi of
Springfield in a press release.

“I wish to offer our deepest concern, as well as our unequivocal rejection of these hateful actions,” Bishop Rozanski continued.

On Feb. 20, more than 150 headstones were damaged in University City,
Missouri at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery. Just a week later, over 100
headstones were found similarly knocked over at the Mount Carmel Jewish
Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia was "deeply
saddened" by the vandalism at Mount Carmel Jewish Cemetery, and called
for "prayerful solidarity with the families of those whose final resting
places have been disturbed."

"As a community, we must speak out
to condemn inflammatory messages and actions that serve only to divide,
stigmatize, and incite prejudice," the archbishop continued. "We must
continually and loudly reject attempts to alienate and persecute the
members of any religious tradition. Rather, as members of diverse faith
and ethnic communities throughout the region, we must stand up for one
another and improve the quality of life for everyone by building bridges
of trust and understanding."

No suspects have been named in either case, but the damage has reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.

More than 50 bomb threats targeting the Jewish community have also
been reported across the country since the beginning of the year,
including scares at Jewish community centers in Philadelphia, Baltimore,
and Milwaukee.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, violent anti-Semitic actions
soared in 2015, and continued into 2016 with increased online
anti-Semitic harassment.

Leaders and officials have denounced the surge in anti-Semitic
actions, including words from President Donald Trump last week, who said
the recent attacks on the Jewish community were “horrible and are a
painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to
root out hate and prejudice and evil.”

Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia also spoke out, saying that “hate is
not permissible in Philadelphia,” and that the perpetrators “will be
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” according to the New York
Times.

Echoing these sentiments, Bishop Rozanski promised that “the Catholic
Church stands in love with the Jewish community in the current face of
anti-Semitism.”

Quoting Pope Francis, he pointed to the dangers of the anti-Semitic
attacks, linking them to acts of dehumanization, which is most notably
seen in hatred towards neighbors.

However, the Springfield bishop also voiced hope that these attacks
could be an opportunity for neighborly love to shine brightly.

“But here we also find an opportunity: that the light of the love of
neighbor may illuminate the Earth with its stunning brightness like a
lightning bolt in the dark; that it may wake us up and let true humanity
burst through with authentic resistance, resilience and persistence.”

“I encourage everyone to remember their neighbor, to find the
opportunities to be lights of resistance, resilience, and persistence
during these contentious times, especially with all our brothers and
sisters of faith.”

The bishops of South Sudan issued a call last Thursday for dialogue
between the warring factions in the country, and international
humanitarian aid to alleviate the famine affecting so many in their
nation.“Those who have the ability to make changes for the good of our
people have not taken heed of our previous pastoral messages … we intend
to meet face to face not only with the President but with the vice
presidents, ministers, members of parliament, opposition leaders and
politicians, military officers from all sides, and anyone else who we
believe has the power to change our country for the better,” the South
Sudanese bishops said in a Feb. 23 pastoral message to the faithful and
people of South Sudan.

“We intend to meet with them not once, but again and again, for as
long as is necessary, with the message that we need to see action, not
just dialogue for the sake of dialogue.”

In their meetings with government and opposition leaders, the bishops
will take as a model the importunate widow of Christ's parable, they
emphasized.

South Sudan has been embroiled in civil war since December 2013, when
violence erupted in the capital city of Juba and quickly spread
throughout the country. The war has is being fought between forces loyal
to the country’s president and those loyal to its former vice
president, and is largely drawn along ethnic lines. Peace agreements
have been short-lived, with violence quickly resuming.

The bishops' message came at the conclusion of a three-day plenary
assembly together with the apostolic nuncio to South Sudan. They said
they received “disturbing reports from all seven of our dioceses
spanning the whole country.”

“The civil war, which we have frequently described as having no moral
justification whatsoever, continues. Despite our calls to all parties,
factions and individuals to STOP THE WAR, nevertheless killing, raping,
looting, displacement, attacks on churches and destruction of property
continue all over the country. In some towns there is calm, but the
absence of gunfire does not mean peace has come. In other towns,
civilians are effectively trapped inside the town due to insecurity on
the surrounding roads.”

The bishops are particulary concerned that alongside fighting between
government and opposition forces, “much of the violence is being
perpetrated by government and opposition forces against civilians.”

“There seems to be a perception that people in certain locations or
from certain ethnic groups are with the other side, and thus they are
targeted by armed forces. They are killed, raped, tortured, burned,
beaten, looted, harassed, detained, displaced from their homes and
prevented from harvesting their crops … Even when they have fled to our
churches or to UN camps for protection, they are still harassed by
security forces,” they lamented.

They pointed to the famine facing more than 100,000 South Sudanese,
saying “there is no doubt” it is “man-made, due to insecurity and poor
economic management.”

“Hunger, in turn, creates insecurity, in a vicious circle in which
the hungry man, especially if he has a gun, may resort to looting to
feed himself and his family. Millions of our people are affected, with
large numbers displaced from their homes and many fleeing to
neighbouring countries, where they are facing appalling hardships in
refugee camps.”

Millions have become refugees or are internally displaced, and some
40 percent of the population is dependent on international aid.

The bishops expressed concern that some government officials seem to be suspicious of the Church.

“In some areas the Church has been able to mediate local peace deals,
but these can easily be undermined if government officials are removed
and replaced with hardliners who do not welcome Church efforts for
peace. Priests, sisters and other personnel have been harassed.”

They detailed that Catholic radio programs have been removed, and
churches burnt down.

In May 2016, a Slovak nun, Sister Veronika Terézia
Racková, was killed by militants; a physician, she had been working at a hospital in Yei.

The bishops also noted that on Feb. 14 “security officers attempted
to close down our Catholic bookshop. They harassed our personnel and
confiscated several books … We hear people saying that 'the Church is
against the government'.”

“We wish to inform all of you that the Church is not for or against
anyone, neither the government nor the opposition,” the bishops
stressed. “We are FOR all good things - peace, justice, love,
forgiveness, reconciliation, dialogue, the rule of law, good governance –
and we are AGAINST evil - violence, killing, rape, torture, looting,
corruption, arbitrary detention, tribalism, discrimination, oppression –
regardless of where they are and who is practising them. We are ready
to dialogue with and between the government and the opposition at any
time.”

The bishops called on the international community to act to alleviate
the country's humanitarian crisis, and said they will continue to make
their people's extreme hardships better known across the world.

Speaking to the people of South Sudan, the bishops said: “We call
upon you to remain spiritually strong, and to exercise restraint,
tolerance, forgiveness and love. Work for justice and peace; reject
violence and revenge. We are with you … We wish to give you hope that
you are not abandoned and that we are working to resolve the situation
at many different levels.”

The bishops concluded by announcing that Pope Francis hopes to visit their country later this year.

“The Holy Father is deeply concerned about the sufferings of the
people of South Sudan. You are already in his prayers, but his coming
here would be a concrete symbol of his fatherly concern and his
solidarity with your suffering. It would draw the attention of the world
to the situation here. We call upon you to begin a programme of prayer
for this visit to go ahead. Let us use the coming months fruitfully to
begin the transformation of our nation.”

Every five hours, another Irish child becomes homeless, according to the charity Focus Ireland, which this week highlighted the extent of the problem.

Citing government figures, Focus Ireland said that in January there
were 7,167 people registered as homeless, 2,407 of whom were children.

The overall number of homeless people is 25 per cent greater than it
was a year ago in January 2016, when the total number of homeless people
was reckoned to be 5,715.

More worryingly, the rate of increase in
homelessness is accelerating even faster – the number of homeless
children is 32 per cent greater than it was 12 months ago, when 1,830
people aged under 18 were without a permanent home.

Looking back at statistics from the last three years, the number of
homeless people in this country has doubled since July 2014, when 3,258
people were registered as being without a home.Last month, 87 families with 151 children became homeless. Focus
Ireland’s advocacy director Mike Allen said: “This means that,
shockingly, a child became homeless every five hours during the month of
January.

“In recent years we have seen a pattern of a fall in the number of
families becoming homeless in December followed by a sudden increase in
January. This year there is a different pattern with no real fall in
December, and a small fall in January.”

Focus Ireland, founded by Sr Stanislaus Kennedy (Sr Stan) of the
Religious Sisters of Charity, is calling on the government to devote
greater energy to tackling the homelessness crisis.

In particular, it wants the Minister for Housing Simon Coveney to set
out “a clear set of actions and objectives” for the next three years
that will prevent family homelessness and provide support to those
already suffering homelessness.

At present, there are only 1,829 units of social housing under
construction, according to figures quoted in the Dáil on Friday.

During
the 1950s, when Ireland was not as rich a country as it is now, we were
able to build social housing at a rate of 5,250 units a year.

In the
1970s, again a period not known for great prosperity, we built social
houses at a rate of more than 6,153 a year.

The 2017 Candleweek, an annual mission week in Cherry Orchard
Parish in the Archdiocese of Dublin, takes place this week, beginning
Monday 27 February and continuing until Friday 3 March.

Each evening at 7.30pm the parish community will gather at Cherry
Orchard church for joy-filled liturgies which explore and celebrate
faith and inspire trust in God in a fun and interactive way.

On Thursday
2 March, special guest Elma Walsh, mother of the late Donal Walsh, will
join the Candleweek celebrations to speak on the theme of ‘well-being’.

Candleweek began in 2006 when the parish pastoral council wanted to
organise an event that would allow as many people as possible in the
parish to enjoy a sacred space, a spiritual time and an opportunity to
reflect and pray in a good humoured and inclusive way.

All are welcome to attend the 11th annual Candleweek celebrations.

For more information on Candleweek visit www.dublindiocese.ie and for updates follow ‘Cherry Orchard Parish’ on Facebook and on Twitter as ‘@candleweek’.

Pope Francis has helped the Society of St Pius X in its efforts to
buy a beautiful church and complex in the centre of Rome, according to
the Italian newspaper Il Foglio.

Vatican commentator Matthew Matzuzzi said the Pope played a “decisive
role” in speeding up the purchase of Santa Maria Immacolata
all’Esquilino.

The church, round the corner from Rome’s Lateran basilica, is
expected to become a study centre and later, it is hoped, the
headquarters of the SSPX.

Matzuzzi said the Pope’s intervention was made through Mgr Guido
Pozzo, secretary of the pontifical commission Ecclesia Dei, which seeks
to bring traditionalists into full communion with the Church.

He said the SSPX superior general Bishop Bernard Fellay stayed at the
Pope’s Santa Marta guesthouse along with two other officials, Fr Alain
Nely and Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, during negotiations last month.

The neo-Gothic church, located on the Esquiline, one of the seven
hills of Rome, was built between 1896 and 1914 for a now disbanded order
of Franciscans, the Grey Friars of Charity.

The complex buildings next
door were formerly used for a school.

It would not be the first time the society has been able to count on the assistance of Pope Francis.

The then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires,
intervened when the Argentine government sought to deny the society
permanent residence in the country on the grounds that it was not
Catholic.

Fr Christian Bouchacourt, the SSPX district superior, appealed to Cardinal Bergoglio, who reportedly told him: “You are Catholic, that is evident. I will help you.”

Matzuzzi also claimed that an agreement between the Holy See and the
SSPX that would establish the society as a personal prelature was now
close.